News and analysis on politics, human rights and civil society in Latin America by Geoffrey Ramsey

Monday, October 14, 2013

Crisis Tests Independence of Colombian Drug Policy Commission

A crisis broke out for Colombia's much-lauded
advisory commission on drug policy last week after its president, Daniel
Mejia, announced his resignation in response to pressure from the government to
withhold publication of a research paper on the negative effects of anti-coca aerial
spraying. While his resignation was refused, the incident proved to be an
important assessment of Colombia's commitment to maintaining the independence
of the drug policy commission.

As mentioned in last
Thursday’s brief, the conflict began on October 7, when Mejia gave
an interview to W Radio in which he criticized the government’s
response to a report he co-authored with Adriana Camacho of the Universidad de
los Andes (available for download here).
The report analyzes the harmful health effects of aerial spraying, as well as
the limited effectiveness of glyphosate, the pesticide most frequently used for
coca eradication. While rural Colombian villages are seeing a
rise in breathing problems and skin conditions as a result of exposure to
the chemical, Mejia and Camacho found that it was not fully effective at
eradicating coca. For every square hectare sprayed with glyphosate, the authors
found that the chemical produced only a 15-20 percent reduction of the crop.

In his remarks to W Radio, Mejia accused the Colombian
Foreign Ministry of pressuring him to delay the paper’s publication. He said this
was so it would not coincide with an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling
on a lawsuit filed by Ecuador on behalf of rural farmers who had been affected
by illegal cross-border spraying. The suit was eventually settled out of court,
and a copy of the agreement obtained by news site La Silla Vacia reveals that
aerial spraying campaigns on the Ecuadorean border will now be held
to higher standards than in the rest of the country.

When Mejia refused to delay the publication the Foreign
Ministry changed tactics, and criticized his findings before the ICJ, countering
it with evidence allegedly furnished by former contractors of Monsanto.

Mejia was so appalled by this, Semana
magazine reported, that he submitted a letter of resignation from his
position as president of the drug policy advisory commission created by
President Juan Manuel Santos. “Being an independent and academic commission,
created by the Colombian government to undertake a thorough assessment of drug
policy in Colombia and issue a series of policy recommendations on these
issues, I cannot allow an institution of the same government to question me
like this,” he wrote in his resignation letter to Justice Minister Alfonso Gomez
Mendez.

On Friday, however, Gomez Mendez said he would
not accept Mejia’s resignation, and expressed support for both his research
and the independence of the commission. In a Twitter post
yesterday, Mejia thanked the justice minister for his endorsement, and
announced that he would stay on with the drug policy commission.

While the full impact of Mejia’s high-profile spat with the Foreign
Ministry remains to be seen, it appears that it may have achieved some concrete
policy changes. At the very least, it has forced the Santos administration to acknowledge
aerial spraying as a controversial issue. On Friday, Deputy Justice Minister Miguel
Samper announced that the government would
review of its approach to coca eradication. The minister framed the current
policy as inefficient in the long run, because spraying did nothing to build
state presence in affected areas. “The review of this policy will come from an
analysis of how to build links to historically coca-growing areas,” Samper
said.

News Briefs

Salvadoran news site El Faro reports
that, after the controversial closure of the Tutela Legal human rights office (which
was deftly covered over the weekend by
Al-Jazeera English), the Catholic Church in El Salvador has announced it will
create a new office that fulfills the same function. The Archdiocese of San
Salvador did not say when the new office would be opened, however.

A new Datafolha poll published over the weekend by Folha
de São Paulo shows that in spite of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s
reduced public approval rating, she is still far more popular than her two
closest competitors a year ahead of the 2014 elections. The poll found that Dilma
leads voting intention with 42 percent, compared to 21 percent for Aecio Neves and
15 percent for Eduardo Campos. As Reuters notes,
if these numbers remain unchanged she will win re-election without a runoff
vote.

The
Miami Herald profiles U.S. Congressman Joe Garcia, who has made a name for
himself as an advocate of a less hardline approach to Cuba policy, breaking
with other Cuban Americans in the House of Representatives. As the Herald notes, however, Garcia rejects
allegations that he is “soft” on Cuba, citing his support for the designation
of Cuba as a state supporter of terror and his opposition to certain cultural
exchanges promoted by the Cuban government.

The Associated
Press reports on fears of impunity for those responsible for Colombia’s “false
positive” scandal, in which thousands of noncombatants were murdered and then
registered as guerrillas killed in combat. As the AP points out, a controversial
law passed in June could make it harder to prosecute officials accused of war
crimes, ensuring that they face trials in the military justice system rather
than in civilian courts.

It appears that Uruguay’s marijuana regulation bill, which
was approved in the lower house on July 31, will face a Senate vote sometime in
November. In remarks to UNoticias last week, Congressman Julio Bango -- one of
the bill’s sponsors in the lower house -- said that the ruling Frente Amplio
(FA) coalition expects a vote next
month. Still, his statement was decidedly cautious. “The idea is that in
the course of November we should see
the possibility of a vote,” said the lawmaker.

As Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro continues to pressure
the country’s National Assembly to pass a bill granting him decree powers he
says are necessary to root out corruption, the government continues to crack
down on abuse of power. El
Nacional and the Wall
Street Journal report that the mayor of Valencia, the country’s third
largest city, has been arrested on corruption charges. The official is a member
of Maduro’s ruling United Socialist Party.

In a move that is sure to put further distance between his
administration and civil society, Honduran President Porfirio Lobo dismissed
allegations of human rights abuses committed by the government as part of an
international conspiracy against him. “Many international organizations are
trying to say that here we are at war, that there is political persecution and these
are situations that aren’t true,” Lobo told local press, El
Heraldo reports.

On Sunday, the New
York Times editorial board weighed in on the lawsuit recently filed by
Haitian human rights advocates against the United Nations over the strong evidence
that UN peacekeeping forces introduced a deadly cholera epidemic to the
country. Whether or not the case proceeds, the editorial argues that the UN
should “acknowledge responsibility, apologize to Haitians and give the victims
the means to file claims against it for the harm they say has been done them.”

On Friday, Venezuelan naval officials seized a U.S.-chartered
oil exploration ship in the Caribbean, accusing the vessel of conducting "unauthorized
scientific work" in Venezuelan maritime territory. The crew, which
includes five U.S. citizens and two Brazilians, is being detained on board for questioning,
the AP
reports.

After a successful operation to remove a blood clot on her
brain, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has been released
from the hospital and is recovering from
the procedure at home, according to administration spokesman Alfredo
Scoccimarro. It remains unclear, however, when she will be fit to resume her
duties.

About The Author

Geoff Ramsey works as a communications officer for the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Before joining WOLA, Ramsey worked as a researcher for the Open Society Foundation’s Latin America Program. His most recent work involved monitoring civil society advocacy for and implementation of 2013 drug policy reforms in Uruguay, where he lived for nearly two years. Prior to that he spent two years living in Colombia and Brazil, where he researched and reported on regional insecurity issues for InSight Crime. Any views or opinions expressed in these posts are the sole responsibility of the author. Email: gramsey (at) thepanamericanpost (dot) com